--Of this group of Hall of Famers, who was the best wrestler?Black Shadow 0.2%Farmer Burns 2.7%Kenta Kobashi 14.0%Wahoo McDaniel 2.9%Shawn Michaels 34.5%Chris Benoit 50.6%Okay, so it's another embarrassing result.

Would someone care to tell me why this is so embarrasing? (Seriously, was HBK supposed to be the landslide winner? Was Wahoo McDaniel great in a way I'm not familiar? Who is Farmer Burns anyway? How was this poll SUPPOSED to turn out.)

--Of this group of Hall of Famers, who was the best wrestler?Black Shadow 0.2%Farmer Burns 2.7%Kenta Kobashi 14.0%Wahoo McDaniel 2.9%Shawn Michaels 34.5%Chris Benoit 50.6%Okay, so it's another embarrassing result.

Would someone care to tell me why this is so embarrasing? (Seriously, was HBK supposed to be the landslide winner? Was Wahoo McDaniel great in a way I'm not familiar? Who is Farmer Burns anyway? How was this poll SUPPOSED to turn out.)

Kenta Kobashi doing so poorly. It's not surprising that the website readers would vote for North Americans, but him getting blown out that bad, even against Benoit and Michaels, would be considered, ehhh, a very inaccurate barometer, since he's esteemed at an even higher standard than Benoit and Michaels.

I think the purpose of these polls, running through the alphabetical list of the WON HOF, is just to come up with weird results. Or to see the differences between the newsletter readership and the website readership, which lean way, way more heavily to this country, for obvious reasons, and even in one of the polls with Kawada vs. Liger vs. Mutoh you saw Kawada finish third because the other two have way more familiarity in the U.S. As a poll result, it's way, way out of proportion, but I don't think you can really call the results embarrassing if the majority have never seen Kobashi wrestle.

(This is about WO.com, so I moved it. I get what you were thinking, though.)

In Dave's mind, Kobashi wins instead of placing third, I believe

Dave being surprised with the results on these polls just kinda illustrates he doesn't really know his audience; it's any easy guess each and every time the WCW/WWE guys will beat the non-WCW/WWE guys because that's who his audience knows.

If it's really so embarrasing, Dave would be better served explaining why he disagrees with the poll instead of just mocking the people who bother to fill out his polls. Otherwise, it's a useless filler paragraph (not a lonely one.)

You can disagree with your readers, but if you just tell them they're wrong and they're silly for thinking that way as opposed to explaining why they're wrong and educating them, you're not really helping anything.

It could just as easily be disgust Benoit is rated above Michaels. It's been a couple of years since I was a suscriber, but last time I was really paying attention he was still annoyed Shawn hadn't been inducted yet.

JJD: "You took the words right out of my mouth. I assumed it was a reference to Kobashi, but I wasn't sure and I thought "what an embarassment, that's IT?""

Well, if anyone who was considered one of the greatest workers ever finished with 14%, it'd be embarrassing. But if I had my family vote in the poll and Black Shadow won 4-1 for having a cool name, I wouldn't be too concerned with the lack of accuracy.

TCF: "Dave would be better served explaining why he disagrees with the poll instead of just mocking the people who bother to fill out his polls."

Yeah. I think all the off-base Bret Hart/Ric Flair responses he got have made him callous. Damn you, Chris Cruise.

BM: "It could just as easily be disgust Benoit is rated above Michaels."

While he considers them both to be two all-time great workers, I believe he said that he would rate Benoit higher.

"Does this mean Chris Benoit's in the wrestling Hall of Fame now?"

Yup, Benoit and Michaels were both voted in last summer.

Bob Backlund and Kurt Angle in the same poll today? That's gotta be a rib on Frank Jewett.

Justin Shapiroshowed almost enough temperance in a WO thread for it not to be embarrassing

Originally posted by JMShapiroJJD: "You took the words right out of my mouth. I assumed it was a reference to Kobashi, but I wasn't sure and I thought "what an embarassment, that's IT?""

Well, if anyone who was considered one of the greatest workers ever finished with 14%, it'd be embarrassing. But if I had my family vote in the poll and Black Shadow won 4-1 for having a cool name, I wouldn't be too concerned with the lack of accuracy.

Well, as a longtime follower of pretty much just US wrestling, except for when they mentioned Jap/Mex/PR stuff in the Apter mags way back when, I really wondered if he meant Kobashi or the Benoit-Michaels thing or even Wahoo, for that matter. Like cubs said, if it's just Dave not being there with his audience then his remark being about Kobashi likely went over their heads as well.

"if it's just Dave not being there with his audience then his remark being about Kobashi likely went over their heads as well."

That's very true. Without going back and looking, I think if you go back through the polls (and what the purpose of the polls are other than to have them, I dunno), you basically see that the standard U.S. names always win comfortably (Flair, Bret, etc), the famous historical names from this country get recognition for having the famous historical name (Thesz, Bockwinkel, etc), and there are certain foreign names like Misawa and Liger that they're familiar with, but not to the point that they'd pick them over either of the first two category. That's certainly how it was for me before I started subscribing. But I voted for Benoit over Kobashi anyway, 'cause I barely follow Japanese wrestling too. Plus foreigners are evil and Benoit is from Atlanta.

"You can disagree with your readers, but if you just tell them they're wrong and they're silly for thinking that way as opposed to explaining why they're wrong and educating them, you're not really helping anything."

It is the Wrestling Observer Newsletter website and the main purpose is to push the newsletter. People could always subscribe to the newsletter and be educated.

The differences between website and Newsletter Reader Polls are very different. But they should be because the internet is filled with teenage WWE smarks on their parents computer while the Newsletter readership is mainly hardcore fans.

I suspect Meltzer has a low opinion of a lot of those net fans because of people stealing his news and REPRINTING IT WRONG then him having to answers calls and emails disputing shit people say he said that he didn't say.

He shouldn't be so surprised though and I guess he's just doing the polls because he's run out of poll questions.

FYI, today in the letters posted on the Observer site, someone wrote in about the comment on the poll. Meltzer said that it was because Kobashi did so poorly and he basically said Kobashi was better than Benoit. I didn't know that people on the Internet were allowed to say that people are better than Benoit. :)